Seventeen and Falling Fast
by Delena Aneled Hupp
Summary: slight AU: The war has ended and the soldiers are sent home. Ginny's life falls back into place... almost. She can't help but think about the strange Slytherin boy she met at the outpost... -GWxBZ- -On Hold Indefinitely-


**_Seventeen and Falling Fast_ **

_**By**_ Delena/Aneled Hupp

**_Rating_** PG (pending)

**_Genre_** Romance/ Humour /General

**_Legalities_** How trite, shall I attempt to personalize it, as does everyone else on this site? HARRY POTTER, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of and copyright Warner Bros. Harry Potter Publishing rights copyright J.K. Rowling. All rights reserved. I am in no form or fashion gaining any money from writing this; all I receive is a good laugh.

**_Mission Summary_** [AU] The war has ended and the soldiers are sent home. Ginny's life falls back into place... almost. She can't help but think about the strange Slytherin boy she met at the outpost... [GW/BZ]

**_Mission Statistic Warnings_** Minor language

**_Mission Status Report _**Work in progress

**_Pre-Mission Briefing_** This fic is and AU branch-off of Like Lovers (Holding On). A few reviewers and a few of my RL friends have suggested a Blaise/Ginny pairing after reading Chapter 4... Apparently I dropped hints without realizing it... Anyways, I grew rather fond of the idea. So if you've read LL (HO) then you may recognize the beginning as chapter four. It takes a different turn though.

**_End briefing-Begin Chapitre_**

Flashes of light from Unforgivable Curses and destructive spells seared across the streets and through empty alleyways of the deserted city. Several people from both sides of enemy lines fell. Death was present here. The atmosphere was thick, tense, and the air around was hot and reeked of blood and massacre. Young Ginevra Weasley stood amidst the violence separated from any of her brothers and Harry. Shouts surrounded her; she tried not to be afraid- a task indeed near impossible when there were many out to take your life. She clutched her new staff in fresh determination as she suddenly caught sight of Harry; but her heart soon fell. A jet of green light erupted from the end of his staff, his face a mask of anger and indistinguishable hate.

Ginny slid weakly to the ground as she saw Harry's curse hit a masked Death Eater. What kind of place would cause people like Harry to kill? For the second time since she arrived at the outpost, she asked herself what she was doing there- for she surely didn't belong. A pair of strong hands suddenly pulled her to her feet, and she whipped around to see who it was; staff at the ready should it be an enemy. The only person standing there was Fred.

The playful smirk that used to twitch across the corners of his mouth had was gone, the spark of mirth that once danced about in his eyes had died, and his sense of humour was lost; never to be returned. The same could be said of his twin, George.

"Are you alright there, Ginny?" her older brother asked gently. All Ginny could manage was a pathetic moan and shook her head weakly.

A hot stream of green light whizzed past Ginny's head, searing some of her red hair as it did.

"Move her behind that building," Bill yelled as he approached Fred and Ginny; the Weasley twin nodded in confirmation and directed his little sister as fast as they could run to the back of an old shop.

Fred released his hold of his sister to let her stand alone, but when she tried there was no response from her unstable legs; so she sunk to the floor shaking from nerves. Fred and Bill crouched down to Ginny's face level.

"She shouldn't be here," Fred murmured as he felt her forehead in case her fever returned. Bill nodded in silent consent before facing the youngest Weasley.

"What happened, Ginny?" he asked above the screams coming from the war zone beside them.

Ginny opened her mouth to speak and made a gagging sound, so she instead clamped her hand over her mouth so as not to vomit. She inhaled through her nose shakily and kept her eyes squeezed shut. Bill drew a comforting arm around her.

He knew this was the last place on Earth- aside from Azkaban- that a sixteen-year-old girl should be. The death and violence Ginny had witnessed in one hour was enough to give one a lifetime of nightmares; and surely leave one permanently scarred.

The Weasley girl opened her eyes again to see the world before her pulsate and spin; and in her mind images of Harry sending an Avada Kedavra at a _living_ person played in loops. She drew in a ragged breath before attempting once more to speak.

"I saw," she choked, "I saw Harry _kill_ someone."

Bill shook his head knowingly.

"Ginny, that's what we have to do," he explained tensely, "If not, _they'll_ kill _us_."

The youngest Weasley nodded her head insipidly.

"I know," she sniffled, "But to see _Harry_ kill someone... He's such a sweet person- for him to kill- I can't- It scares- I just don't know what to- want to go home-" she he was cut off by her own hyperventilating. Fred and Bill did their best to calm her down; but she had gotten herself worked up and wouldn't stop.

"Wait," Bill looked over his shoulder, "I think it's stopped; someone must've retreated."

Indeed the war zone was now unnaturally quiet. The Deatheaters had retreated, and now the standing Order soldiers were scouring the carnage for survivors. From where he was standing, Harry caught sight of Ginny and two of her brothers- and apparently Ron, George, and Charlie did too; seeing as they rushed over to the abandoned building. Harry left Draco and Blaise to search for casualties as he followed the other Weasley boys to the wall.

Bill was still trying to comfort the shivering Ginny as Fred was explaining to the others what had happened when Harry arrived. He glanced over at Ginny, curled up in a tight ball- she looked like a child no more than five- and tears pouring down her pale face; and he felt his heart catch in his throat.

"What's wrong?" he asked Fred. The Weasley twin shook his head.

"Let's get her back to the outpost; I'll tell you then," Fred answered, Harry complied to his request and glanced back down at Ginny huddled like a frightened child in her brother's arms.

Bill carefully laid his baby sister on her cot before leaving her tent and regrouping with the others. The Head Nurse, Emma, said that all Ginny needed was some rest; if she showed any psychological problems later a military therapist would be contacted.

Once Bill stepped out of Ginny's tent, the men headed towards the mess tent and seated themselves at a table. Harry nervously traces at a pattern in the wood of the table until Fred addressed him. The bespectacled young man looked up.

"What happened to Ginny?" he inquired, pointedly not looking anyone in the eyes.

"Harry, you've witnessed deaths before- I think most of us here have-; but aside from Sirius, Ginny's never seen so much death ever," Fred explained, "But what really disturbed her was seeing you kill. She's never seen that side of you, and it scared her.

"You see, outside of the family, you're the one person she feels safe with and trusts; and realizing you're capable- all of us are really- of killing took away her illusion of security. Ginny's finally seen the real world today; more than she was even exposed to at Hogwarts."

The full weight of the situation finally hit Harry. He never thought how all of this would affect Ginny; after all, he had witnessed more than his fair share of deaths. But Ginny was still unexposed to reality, no matter what she had gone through in her First Year at Hogwarts or what she experienced through the Order; she was still like a child.

Suddenly everything felt numb to Harry, and he gave vague acknowledgement to Fred's words before excusing himself from their company and leaving the mess tent. The sun had begun to set now, leaving Harry's tired shadow to follow behind him to the Swamp.

Harry flopped unceremoniously onto his cot and flung his arm over his eyes. He blinked, and saw a Deatheater fall once more. If truth were told, this was an equally frightening experience for Gryffindor's Golden Boy. He tried to relax, but his body was shivering slightly; enough to make him feel restless. His heart pounded in his chest.

How much more would he have to kill before he could go back to Hogwarts and live a quiet life? It was times like this that Harry wished he was just an ordinary Muggle, no Voldemort, no Dementors, and no Deatheaters. But Muggles did have their share of grievances didn't they?

Instead of fighting with magic, he would be shooting a gun or planting an explosive; there wouldn't be any Voldemort, but there would be powerful and ruthless dictators with secret police at their command. And perhaps there wouldn't be Dementors or Deatheaters, but certainly a powerful dictator would have his own troops to spread terror.

Maybe being a Muggle wouldn't be any better. Harry heard the door to the tent open, and a series of footsteps followed. Ron, Draco, and Blaise sat down on their cots as a rather tense silence filled between them before Ron got up to rummage through his belongings and the other two settle into their cots for the night.

Ginny awoke with a start the next morning to the sound of an explosion and voices shouting apprehensive orders. The nurses she shared a tent with had already awoken and rushed to the medical stations, leaving Ginny to join the soldiers. She quickly sprung out of bed; slightly losing her balance since her headache hadn't left completely, and pulled on her robes and boots. She grabbed her staff as she tore out of the tent, suddenly noticing that the sun hadn't even risen yet.

Harry, Ron, Draco, and Blaise were each pulled from their sleep to the same sounds as Ginny; but had reacted quicker and were already assembled as a shrill female voice headed towards them.

"Harry! Ron! Wait for me guys!" Ginny cried desperately, catching up with the group of young men. When she reached them, she doubled over to catch her breath; her lungs ached and her head was once again pounding. Harry put a reassuring arm around her shoulder, and gave her a gentle squeeze.

Lights danced a few kilometres in the distance, so that was where the soldiers for the Order of the Phoenix headed.

They arrived at the outskirts of the same town yesterday's battle was fought, each soldier- ranging in ages from fourteen to forty-five or more- clutching their staff. By now, Ginny had forgotten about yesterday's trauma, and a new look of raw determination was etched across her freckled features.

Another hot jet of light soared passed Ginny as she pulled behind the safety of a wall of an apartment complex. A masked figure cloaked in black approached her from her haven. With all of the courage she could muster, she rounded the corner screaming, "STUPEFY!"

The Death Eater was thrown backwards.

"Nice hit, but he'll be up again," an unfamiliar voice said from behind her. Ginny looked over to where she had stood against the wall mere seconds ago to see a young man with brown hair and aquamarine eyes grinning. Ginny recognized him, she'd see him here and there at the outpost- more often than not in the company of Draco Malfoy- and she vaguely remembered seeing the boy at Hogwarts. Which House he belonged to, however, she couldn't say.

"You're Blaise, aren't you?" she asked, quickly regaining her hiding spot behind the wall beside the boy. He nodded.

A series of lights ripped through the air beside them, Ginny saw Neville suddenly bolt across an alleyway. He was looking behind himself as he ran, and stopped long enough to aim and send a curse hurtling towards a Death Eater before he regained his flight.

"Get back!" Blaise hissed, pulling Ginny back as curse flew with amazing speed through the spot where her head had been moments ago. Her heart pounding in her ears, the young Weasley girl turned to face Blaise and gave him a feeble grin.

"Thanks for that," she managed to stutter.

"No problem," he nodded. The brunette young man leaned around the corner and murmured, "Avada Kedavra" in a rush before once more pulling back. He turned and seized Ginny's hand and suddenly bolted out from behind the wall, pulling her with him. The two dashed through the street narrowly dodging curses; Blaise occasionally sending an Avada Kedavra backwards towards a Death Eater and Ginny sometimes blasting a knockout jinx, until they reached a new "foxhole".

Ginny let out a sigh of relief and slid, back against the wall, down to the cobblestone ground. From her perspective on the ground, she examined her new surroundings- they were now behind an inn and tavern. The town they were fighting in was truthfully more of a village, and quite reminded Ginny of Hogsmead actually. There was light out now, the heat of the morning sun reached beyond the shadows where she sat and touched her face. She shifted her feet; they were growing sore from running in boots. Ginny glanced over at Blaise- who was standing by the edge of the wall keeping a lookout- for a second and then reverted to staring at her feet

"So you're Ginny Weasley, then," Blaise said from beside her, and she turned her head to face him; seeing that he had sat down next to her.

"Yeah, as if the red hair and freckles didn't give it away," she replied, smiling.

"Gryffindor?" he asked casually.

"Yup. What about you?"

"Slytherin," was the answer. This response startled her, and she was somewhat shocked that a Slytherin was willingly trying to start a conversation with a Gryffindor, and a Weasley at that. Just weeks ago, if you asked Ginny whom the most evil people in the world were, she would have replied with, "Voldemort, and Slytherins". But from what she experienced this past week was nothing short of miraculous; Slytherins didn't all fit into their stereotype, and maybe there was no such thing as pure evil. There was always the exception of Voldemort of course.

"Stay here," Blaise commanded in a whisper as he picked up his staff and assumed a couching position and crawled over to the corner of the wall. He reached his staff around the corner, focusing hard, and mumbled under his breath to release a blast of green light. His eyes widened as he pulled back with astonishing speed just in time for a red charge to fly past him. Ginny gasped. Blaise's complexion paled noticeably as he stared at the space in which he was crouched only little seconds before. Ginny could hear her heart hammering loudly again.

The crunching sound of footfalls on bits of gravel approached from Ginny's right. Blaise made a move to stand but the Gryffindor girl felt the need to prove herself and moved instead. Mimicking Blaise, she crouched down and cautiously raised her staff to attack. She purged all thoughts from her head except for the one saying, "_attack_" and reached around the corner with the incantation on her lips.

"Don't!" a familiar male voice suddenly yelped. Ginny opened her eyes, she didn't realize she shut them, and saw Charlie standing before her with his hands up in protest. Ginny fell backwards onto her rear and landed with an "oof!".

"Are you flippin mad?!" Ginny shrieked, "I might've well hurt you!"

Charlie offered his hand to her, and she clasped it with an indignant huff as he pulled her to her feet.

"You _could've _but you didn't," he replied, grinning, "I've been looking for you. The You-Know-Who's forces have retreated, we're heading back to camp now."

The eldest Weasley boy now took notice of the brunette standing some few metres away from his baby sister. His friendly eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Who are you?" Charlie demanded, snapping Blaise back to the present, and glaring at the teenager in that over-protective brotherly way. An unreadable smile suddenly flitted across Blaise's features.

"Blaise Zabini, Slytherin House," his tone was vaguely laced with travesty. As quickly as that brief personality emerged, it was gone and the quite Blaise had returned. Ginny couldn't help smiling though; some of Blaise's Slytherin attributes had wormed their way to the surface and now the Gryffindor girl was more curious than ever about this enigmatic young man.

"He's okay, Charlie," she assured her brother, "He helped me."

And with that, she headed back to camp. Charlie followed, but stopped just long enough to shoot a last pointed glare to the Slytherin; and it was enough to relay the unspoken message, _"If you hurt Ginny, I'll kill you."_ Blaise swallowed nervously before following the stocky Weasley back to headquarters.

Four Months Later 

Ginny stood at the platform at a train station waiting for her ride home. She altered her duffel bag to her other hand and shifted from foot to foot to keep the blood circulating in her tight boots. She hadn't laced them too snugly, but nonetheless, they made it difficult for feet to move. Behind her, all crammed onto one bench, four of her brothers sat in a drowsy state; Harry was spread out on another nearby bench sound asleep. Percy had been sent home two months earlier after receiving nerve damage from an offensive spell. Charlie, however...

Ginny felt her tears return. Charlie had been killed only a week prior. Talk that the war was wearing down had everyone in considerably lighter moods; so when Voldemort was finally taken down, the Order expected no further resistance. Charlie Weasley was the first and last victim of the Deatheaters' last-ditch effort to take down the Order of the Phoenix. It happened so unexpectedly that it took Ginny and the others several hours for the facts to sink in. Charlie was dead. Just when everyone was celebrating the war's end and was ready to go home, the Dark Forces made their last statement. Ginny was anticipating going home and being able to be with her family as a whole once more...So much for wishful thinking.

She sighed and hastily wiped the forming tears away from her stinging eyes with her sleeve. Ginny glanced up at the station clock; the train to Hogwarts was already thirty minutes late.

Crowded at the station along with the Weasley children were the surviving Order soldiers, all more than ready to go home. Half of the soldiers were waiting for the Hogwarts train. Ginny could feel her feet beginning to tingle, so she shifted a little more slowly until she could take it no longer and finally sat down. She leaned her head back and sighed again, admiring the industrial crossbeams on the station ceiling. A shrill whistle startled the sleepy teenaged soldiers as a shining red steam engine came bustling down the tracks and screeched to a halt before the platform. Ginny didn't think she had ever felt happier in her entire life to see that great red train than she did at that moment.

She was finally going home.

Several weeks had now passed since the students returned to Hogwarts and the School for Witches and Wizards was finally busy and near full again. There had been a memorial feast for all of the lives lost and to honour Hogwarts students who had died. But life was beginning to shift back into its usual pace and comforting familiarity. There always would be, however, a sense of emptiness, of incompletion throughout the castle where the ghosts of memories of those who had passed on still lingered.

Before returning to Hogwarts, the remaining Weasley children spent a week at the Burrow upon their mother's insisting. Percy's condition, Charlie's death, and Arthur Weasley's mysterious disappearance had had an immense impact on poor Mrs. Weasley; so she demanded her children were safe within her sights. A week was all Ron and Ginny could spare before returning to their drastically incomplete school year.

Ginny set her quill down onto her parchment. She stretched languidly back in her chair for a moment before once more devoting her attention to the nasty little scroll before her. The only thing scrawled across was, "A Theory On Muggle Industry". The redheaded Gryffindor had written boring essays on boring topics more times than she could count during her six years at Hogwarts; but this had to take the cake. She stifled a yawn and surveyed the Common Room. Hermione was casually reading an Arithmancy book while leaning against Ron on the couch. Ron was frantically flipping through the pages of his potions text, trying desperately to cram everything in at the last moment. Harry was nowhere to be found.

The youngest Weasley decided the drowsy atmosphere was not what she needed to complete her assignment so she gathered her quill, ink, parchment, and textbooks and left through the portrait hole.

Ginny took a seat now in the library. Granted, the silence wasn't much of an improvement here, but the idea of books everywhere and the lack of fire glow and sleepy people encouraged her some. She set her utensils and texts out on a study table and began scratching her quill furiously across the parchment, pausing only now and then to flip through her text for a reference or dip the tip of her quill in the inkbottle.

A few hours passed without the young redhead taking much notice, the only sound reaching her mostly was the insane scuffing of her quill. Students came and went as the day crawled along, and soon the library was near empty. Ginny was almost finished with her essay when her fatigue finally took over and she fell asleep with her textbook as a pillow.

An hour later the young Weasley was startled out of her sleep by a loud clap of thunder. Outside, whilst she slept, a storm had moved in. Ginny glanced at her watch; it was almost curfew. She was facing one of the large windows, hand propping up her chin, and stared blankly at the tempest beyond the fogged panes. She sighed. What had become of Blaise Zabini, she wondered; she hadn't seen or heard from him since her first meeting with the older Slytherin.

The truth was, she had thought about him often as of late; she couldn't shake his image from her mind. She thought about it and then decided she really didn't mind thinking about him a lot. The most striking things about Blaise, she remembered, were his eyes. She only saw him once, and that was several months ago; but she could clearly see his eyes when she thought of him. They were beautiful in an enigmatic way. Green, but not the emerald of his House or the same green as the Boy Who Lived had. They were the green that was often mixed with the pacific blue of the ocean, the kind of green that could soothe the heart and ease the mind and make one believe there was nothing to worry about in the world. They were deep, powerful torrents of unspoken and hidden thoughts and emotions; bright unfathomable depths of character wishing desperately to be revealed.

In essence, there was so much about Blaise Zabini that Ginny found herself wanting to know more about. Was he cynical like the other Slytherins she encountered; full of cunning and malice, plotting cruel or sinister things? Was he an intellectual with qualities worthy of the noble Ravenclaw House, only in Slytherin because of family heritage or an abundance of cleverness the sly Slytherins possessed? Maybe he was gallant like a Gryffindor, a modern knight in a world where gentlemen were an endangered kind. He certainly seemed brave when she had met him at the outpost, but then some Slytherin spark had broken through when he met Charlie. He could be a somewhat misfit person, like a Hufflepuff in spirit; not really belonging anywhere but just ended up where he was. Who could tell?

Ginny had asked around when she first returned to Hogwarts. Her brother and Harry could offer very little insight to Blaise's true character; for they barely knew the boy's surface disposition. Hermione had never heard of the young man, she said she vaguely remembered that name from the Sorting Ceremony in her First Year. None of the other Gryffindors were of any help either. Ginny pressed on, asking her acquaintances in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Her inquisition proved fruitless in the end. The only resort left was to ask a Slytherin, but despite all of the lion's courage the young Weasley possessed and regardless of the fact that her views on Slytherins had softened dramatically since the war ended; she was still not bold enough to confront one.

So there she was, in the same fix she was in since returning home, staring out the same window she had stared out many times before, picturing a different face from the one she used to see when she closed her eyes. Ginny had fallen so deeply into her thoughts, that she did not notice the presence of another sit down in a chair beside her.

"How's it going, Weasley G?" A soft male voice startled her out of her silent musing. When she looked beside her, the first things she saw were bright aquamarine eyes. Her heart skipped a beat.

"H-hi," she stammered dumbly. She winced at her lack of finesse, why did she lose her nerve at moments like this? She was acting like a silly little First Year when she had a crush on Harry and blushed madly every time he would address her. She had thought that was just her preteen giddiness making her act like a giggly prep; but the heat of a furious blush crept up her face regardless. This was completely ridiculous! She never acted like this when she had first met him! Why was she so embarrassed now?

"Nice to see you again, Zabini," Ginny tried again, but her voice came out too soft, too girly than was usual for her. She was not shy, damn it! Yet, her body would not desist.

"And it's nice to see you again," Blaise responded. He leaned back in his chair and rocked it on the back two legs. Ginny studied the oak patterns of the table with mock interest... There was an awkward silence; and the Gryffindor winced when she noticed it. She took another stab at conversing.

"I haven't seen you since the outpost," she tried, her regular vocal pitch and volume returning; she felt her heartbeat finally steady and the heat in her face die down. '_Good_,' she thought, '_My moment of weakness passed._'

"I'm not a social butterfly, I like the Cave," the Slytherin responded. His voice sounded strained, like someone who lost his voice and tried to use it too much so that it sounded like a harsh whisper. His voice had sounded like that before, so Ginny guessed that he either screamed a lot or that was the way he had always sounded.

"Oh?" she quirked an eyebrow, "The Cave? You mean the dungeons, right?"

Blaise nodded, then cast a haphazard glance at the large regulator clock hanging on the wall.

"It's almost curfew, I'll see you around sometime," he said as he stood. Just as he spoke, the chime struck, signifying the arrival of a newborn hour. Ginny reluctantly conceded. She had just found him again, only to lose him once more to the many nameless faces of Hogwarts bustling student population.

"Will I see you again, Zabini?" she asked somewhat hesitantly as she gathered her supplies into her arms.

"I don't see why not, _Ginny_," came the playful response. She smiled and without another exchange they both departed from the library and went their separate ways to their respective dormitories.

**_End Chapitre_**

**_Post-Mission Analysis _**Well, chapter one is finished. Alesca gave me a genius idea so I decided I'm going to break this down into a miniseries. I felt really bad about killing Charlie and letting Percy live, but seriously people, life works like that. Anyway, after this chapter, things will start getting funny. Reviews are most welcome! And what the hell, go on flamers, I dare ya.

_**End Transmission**_


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